After a terrific first season under the tutelage of Giancarlo Italiano, the Wellington Phoenix have seen several key players move on, netting significant transfer fees in return. Front Page Football reviews the departures, analyses the new acquisitions the Nix have made so far, and discusses what still needs to be done for the squad to be ready for their 2024/25 campaign.
Wellington Phoenix head coach Giancarlo Italiano guided the club to second place and a Semi-Final appearance in his first season at the helm. (Image: Wellington Phoenix FC Facebook)
A couple of months ago, it looked like the Wellington Phoenix’s squad was poised to kick on after a record-breaking 2023/24 season. They had finished just one win from the Premier’s Plate in the A-League Men and only one goal from taking Melbourne Victory to a penalty shootout that, if successful, would have seen them through to their first-ever Grand Final.
Better still, the Phoenix had locked most of their pivotal players down to fresh contracts. As Front Page Football wrote in June, the Nix had Finn Surman on the books for another year and young guns Alex Paulsen and Ben Old for another two seasons.
Just imagine. Old is flying up the wing, and Bozhidar Kraev is still providing that crucial spark of attacking intent in the middle of the park. Surman is keeping things tight at the back, ahead of penalty-saving extraordinaire Paulsen marshalling his backline.
Also exciting for folks of a Phoenix persuasion is the security of a side with its spine intact. The familiar face of Nicholas Pennington, for example – whose versatility and commitment, if not flair, had been a mainstay of this Wellington side for the last three years – and, of course, the goals and presence of the imperious Oskar Zawada up top.
The stage was set for the Phoenix, under the breakout leadership and savvy management of Giancarlo “Chiefy” Italiano, to build on the foundations of that unprecedented 2023/24 season.
Then, something happened – the Phoenix lost most of their best players.
AFC Bournemouth came swooping in for Paulsen. An off-contract Zawada took off for RKC Waalwijk in the Netherlands. Old, despite the three years left on his Nix deal, disappeared into the clutches of French Ligue 1 side Saint-Étienne, while Surman pinched his own 'pinch-me moment' in the form of a move to the Portland Timbers in the MLS.
Perhaps the only saving grace for the Nix – a small one – was that fellow A-League Men sides did not snap up these stars.
Yet even this silver lining could not soften the departures of Kraev and Pennington (who will represent the Western Sydney Wanderers and Perth Glory next season, respectively) and Jack Duncan – whose departure to Melbourne Victory is especially baffling, given Paulsen’s exit offered him a long-awaited pathway into the Phoenix’s starting line-up.
All told, there have been seven departures (eight if you count the club declining the opportunity to retain the services of loan signing Youstin Salas on a more permanent basis), with six starting players representing almost half of the Wellington Phoenix’s best XI from the 2023/24 season. To merely say that the spine of the squad has been ripped out would be an understatement: it has been hung, drawn, and quartered.
The departures raise a double-headed question, which Front Page Football wanted to delve deeper into: Why is this exodus happening? And, more pressingly for Italiano and his staff, where do the Nix now need to strengthen before their campaign kicks off in October?
The answer to the first is, quite simply, that money talks – and the Phoenix have always been limited by a tight budget. The transfer of Surman, for instance – who spent four years with the Phoenix Reserves after being plucked from anonymity at amateur side Selwyn United – earned the Nix a fee of more than A$820,000. Meanwhile, Paulsen’s record-breaking transfer to the Premier League netted the Welnix-owned club a whopping A$3,725,000 windfall.
Not that player sales are new to the club, of course – Sarpreet Singh’s 2019 transfer to Bayern Munich brought in a payday of more than A$1 million; more recently, Liberato Cacace’s 2020 sale to Belgian side Sint-Truiden earned the Nix almost double that. One statistic jumps out when looking at these lucrative outgoings – they are all from the last five seasons. Before that, the only time the Phoenix offloaded a player for a noteworthy fee was 14 years ago: 2010’s sale of centre-back Jon McKain to Al-Nassr in the Saudi Pro League for a then-record A$984,000. (Yes – a former Phoenix defender was securing a trailblazing, big-money move to the Saudi Arabian side way before Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane, and Aymeric Laporte would follow suit).
The fact that the Phoenix has been netting such impressive outgoing transfer fees is a testament to the work of the Wellington Phoenix Football Academy – founded in 2013 – which is gaining deserved recognition as one of the continent's most prolific youth pipelines.
But, through a wider lens, it also reflects the increasing financial pressures all A-Leagues clubs face: represented, most recently, by the A$1,470,000 worth of funding cut from each club as they head into the 2024/25 season. Unlike Melbourne City or Sydney FC, who can more easily plug this shortfall, the Phoenix relies on player sales. (Surman's transfer, for example, will only go towards filling half the gap left by that funding cut).
The point? The Phoenix, like many of their budget-stricken rivals, are running on a financial treadmill – forced to move faster and faster to stay in the same place. Or, to lean on a different analogy, when the siren song of big, deep-pocketed football clubs come calling, the Phoenix cannot help but be dashed upon the sharp rocks. Fans decry it, but the truth – that, without these sales, the club would be long defunct – is inescapable. Let’s turn to the second part of our question: where do the Phoenix need to strengthen this season? And how?
The first, and most obvious, answer is more bodies in the building – something the Phoenix have already begun to address with the signing of Marco Rojas. The New Zealand international, who was the product of a Yellow Fever scholarship that earned him a trial at the Nix – who he would go on to star for across two seasons, before jumping ship to Melbourne Victory – made his name cutting in from the wing with pace and technical precision: and with a ruthless eye for goal.
Through that lens, the 32-year-old Rojas could assume some of the function Ben Old took responsibility for last season – without the latter’s speed or youthful zeal. The changing profile of Rojas with age, then, suggests he might be more of a like-for-like with Kraev – providing industry and technical prowess in a number 10 role and making late runs into the box from crosses provided by Kosta Barbarouses or Oskar van Hattum.
That said, who knows what role Rojas will play next year?
“We’re going to change the formation a little bit going into next season. I don’t see [Rojas] as a winger or a number 10; I see him as just a natural attacker,” Chiefy said in early July.
This statement suggests the 'Kiwi Messi' will have a less defined role with more freedom to float between the lines and play, a la Old last season, on the shoulder of the last defender.
The Phoenix will also, ideally, need a centre-back to slot into Surman’s spot. However, Wellington’s focus on blooding youth – and trust in their younger players – means they have readymade alternatives to step into the roles their stars have vacated without having to dip too deeply into the club’s coffers.
For example, Phoenix Academy product Isaac Hughes – a natural centre-back used primarily as a right-back in his handful of appearances last season – remains an existing, homegrown option here. Meanwhile, Tim Payne’s excellence on the right side of the defence last season means this flank is covered. Nor should Phoenix fans be scared of a relatively green player like Hughes coming in to partner Scott Wootton – when Surman made this exact jump last season, it was off the back of a campaign in which he was openly criticised by then-Nix manager Ufuk Talay, who had doubts about his ability.
Phoenix fans should also be encouraged by the emergence of right-back Matthew Sheridan. Along with his left-sided counterparts Lukas Kelly-Heald and Phoenix mainstay Sam Sutton, Sheridan has shown flashes of his exciting potential (although admittedly with fewer appearances: we saw Sheridan deployed in just four matches as a substitute last season; expect to see him get more minutes this time around).
In the midfield, the Phoenix also have capable alternatives waiting in the wings. This season’s absence of Pennington – who deputised in that same spot but was more commonly seen in a deep-lying defensive midfield role – has seen Chiefy move for two-time championship-winning former Sydney FC midfielder Paulo Retre. The swap looks like-for-like, but do not discount the possibility of seeing Fin Conchie more involved in the starting setup in the 2024/25 campaign.
On the periphery last season and more typically used as a late substitution, we can expect to see Conchie rotated more frequently with Mohamed Al-Taay behind Alex Rufer and Retre, who will almost certainly be alongside the Nix's No. 14 at the top of the pecking order in the middle of the park.
Phoenix fans will be hoping that Rufer – who, despite an excellent season, will rue two crucial late-season penalty misses – will come back fresh and ready to cover a similar amount of ground as Retre in his last few campaigns.
Again, this area is one in which the Wellington Phoenix Reserves have a depth of (admittedly callow) talent that Chiefy could look to exploit this season in the absence of fresh signings, with the likes of young midfielders such as Jackson Manuel and Fergus Gillion – and, behind them, Harrison Tisch, Hayden Thomas, and Raphael Conway – able to plug some central or defensive gaps in the middle of the park.
The biggest question for the Phoenix ahead of 2024/25 is undoubtedly this: where will the goals come from? Kraev and Zawada accounted for a combined 16 goal involvements in the 2023/24 season; Old chipped in nine. For a team that was hardly free-wheeling in front of goal last term – the Phoenix outscored only the bottom three teams in the league – this area of the pitch is, and should, be a significant cause for concern.
Notwithstanding the retained services of Barbarouses or the addition of Rojas, a new striker is a must, and a player of the 'target man' variety, able to hold up play and lay the ball off to incoming runners, which is a tried-and-tested player profile Chiefy may again turn to this off-season.
The Phoenix will also need to find a way of wringing a greater output from English veteran David Ball in front of goal. The former Bradford City striker’s commitment and work rate are admirable, but he’s profligate—not prolific. And when you register twice as many yellow cards as goal involvements—and fail to score, as a striker, across the course of a 27-game season—something isn’t quite working.
Recent reports claim that the Phoenix are looking at dipping into New Zealand's domestic leagues for a source of goals, with Napier City Rovers striker Oscar Faulds supposedly set to sign. The Sweden-born Kiwi striker scored 21 goals in 1,245 minutes of league football in 2024—slightly less than 60 minutes per goal—and while it is unlikely he would slot straight into the starting line-up this season, he certainly offers much-needed depth.
One cause for optimism is the emergence of New Zealand international van Hattum, who hit form in the last few games of the 2023/24 season (his cross for Surman’s winning goal in a home triumph against Melbourne Victory in April was a thing of particular beauty). With Ball and Barbarouses entering the twilight of their careers (and, given the pair are only contracted until the end of this season, their Phoenix stays), Italiano must be looking to build the future of his squad around players like van Hattum, not to mention the (so far, rarely seen) 17-year-old winger Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues. We may also see more of 18-year-old striker Luke Supyk.
It is anyone's guess who will play between the sticks this season. At the moment, the Phoenix have just two young custodians—19-year-old Alby Kelly-Heald and recently signed Dublin Boon—on the books.
With two-thirds of the Paulsen-Duncan-AKH trio from last season gone, you would expect the Nix to bring in an undisputed starting goalkeeper: someone more senior who can also aid in the teenage goalkeepers’ development and growth.
Who that will be is another mystery – the Dane William Tønning, Faulds' clubmate from Napier City Rovers, is reported to be trialling with the Phoenix alongside the striker – although one thing we do know is that Chiefy will not be limited to Antipodean shores to find his man.
With the departures of Zawada (Poland) and Kraev (Bulgaria) freeing up a pair of visa spots and the Costa Rican international Salas having already departed, the Phoenix can make up to three international signings before their next campaign kicks off (the Nix’s visa spots are currently occupied by English duo Wootton and Ball – and even the latter, who is able to apply for New Zealand citizenship in 2025, may not count as an overseas signing for long).
In fact, the Nix gaffer has announced that he will look to one of his remaining visa spots to secure a starting goalkeeper for the upcoming season. Is anyone predicting Tony Warner's sensational return?
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So, will Chiefy fully utilize his international options for the 2024/25 season? Will the Phoenix double down on the youthful focus that saw them reach the heights of this past season? Or will the boss take a hybrid approach that sees him continue to tweak and tinker with his side tactically?
We should better understand how the Nix will set up next season when they take on South Melbourne FC at Lakeside Stadium on 6 August in the Australia Cup Round of 32.
Until then, let us know in the comments who you think the Phoenix should be looking to sign (or promote) ahead of next season – and why!
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